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up a creek

Also, up shit creek; up the creek (without a paddle). In trouble, in a serious predicament, as in If the check doesn't arrive today I'm up a creek, or The car wouldn't start, so I was up the creek without a paddle. This slangy idiom conjures up the image of a stranded canoeist with no way of moving (paddling) the canoe. President Harry S. Truman used the first term in a letter in 1918. The first variant is considered vulgar.

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Question 1 of 9
You may have read the word "simmer" in a recipe or two, but what does it really mean?
To cook in water that begins cold and then reaches a boil.
To stew in a sauce for a long time.
To cook in water, just below boiling temperature.
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Words nearby up a creek

unzip, unzipped, UO, U. of S. Afr., up, up a creek, up against, upalong, up-anchor, up and about, up and at 'em
The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.